


Enough

by gul



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:42:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27910957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gul/pseuds/gul
Summary: What happens after Bellatrix's knife hits Hermione instead of Dobby as the heroes escape Malfoy Manor.Voldemort comes up with a way to punish the Malfoys (more specifically, Lucius) and torture Hermione in one cruel assignment, and Hermione must learn to navigate darker and more dangerous waters than ever before.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 25
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one's a bit messed up for me (it's been a ROUGH YEAR) but then again I wrote a lot of Hannibal so maybe not. Just, you know, fair warning.

She was bright, to be sure, but her first two thoughts concerning what happened after Dobby apparated them from Malfoy Manor were wrong.

The sharp pain was so bright, so sudden, that at first Hermione thought something had just gone wrong with the apparition.

Then, she thought the wind had been knocked out of her—until the wind was _actually_ knocked out of her as she collapsed onto the cold stone floor.

Doubled over and gasping, the sunlight she had glimpsed turning back into the dark manor, the pale blonds and dark madwoman cackling.

Her first _correct_ thought hit her with a dark lurch— _she had been left behind_. Dobby had come to rescue them, but she had been left behind. Because of a madwoman throwing a wretched knife, at the last possible moment, that had hit her in the belly and knocked her from her friends' grasp.

Her second correct thought, which became her _only_ thought, a searing white across brain and body—there was a knife in her belly, and her hands were slippery with blood.

She could barely think, barely _breathe_ —there was shouting, and cackling.

Everything seemed to be happening very far away.

She saw heeled black shoes by her feet—the bottom of a swishing black dress— _Bellatrix_ —

_Oh, it hurt—!_

Her wand—

She reached out for her wand, which had clattered to her side, and grabbed it.

She tried to suck in a breath to cast—

A sharp kick to her hand.

The wand flew from her fingers, slippery with blood.

“ _Crucio_!” a woman bellowed.

And then there was nothing but agony—she barely registered Bellatrix Lestrange on top of her, pulling at her, pulling at the knife, hissing and cursing and laughing. Her whole body was taut and twisted—her skin was being peeled off surely, her teeth and nails pulled, her organs twisting and tangling in on themselves—

And then it was over.

She sucked in a breath, twitching, as a shrieking Narcissa Malfoy pulled her sister off of her.

The polished wood floor beneath her was slick and warm with blood.

She reached once more for a wand that wasn’t there. Narcissa had it; she was using it to set wards as Bella cackled, licking her knife.

Dobby wouldn’t be able to come back for her.

 _None_ of them would be able to come back for her.

She was alone, and captured.

And _dying_.

Her extremities felt cold, although whether it was from blood loss or shock or pain or all of the above, she couldn’t say.

 _Did dying always feel this surprising,_ she wondered, staring up at the stone ceiling and trying to breathe. _Like tripping. Just an accident, a wrong step, and you are gone._

_Is this all it was, at the end._

She felt herself being propped up by strong arms, against a broad chest. Lucius Malfoy, of all people, she realized horribly, as long silver-blond hair fell in her face.

“There’s a girl,” he muttered to her. “We’ve got _one_ ,” he said, to someone else.

“Not if she dies,” the someone said, and then: “Sorry, Granger,” and she felt her jacket being unzipped and her thin shirt being rucked up.

Hermione opened her eyes and saw Draco kneeling by her side. He was examining the wound, his face twisted in concentration and disgust.

She groaned and tried to writhe away.

"Be _still_ ," Lucius hissed, grabbing her shoulders and holding her in one place.

“Hold on, Granger,” Draco said. “We’ve got you.” Whether it was threat or reassurance, she wasn't certain. But his heart wasn’t in it.

She closed her eyes as the man holding her brushed back the bloody hair that was matted to her face. Draco had always been oddly talented at healing—but even she could feel that without a wand, it was useless. And she doubted Draco had the really effective healing potions at hand.

“My wand,” she said.

“Bellatrix has it,” Draco said.

She shut her eyes tight. 

“Snape,” she murmured, finally.

Draco stopped. “Professor Snape?!” he sneered.

“Fetch Severus,” Lucius told him, with all the ice she remembered in his voice. Draco’s face pinched but he stood and scurried to obey.

Hermione was almost certain Snape would stand by and happily watch her die. But Snape was also the only person who could heal her, who had ever protected her, that they Malfoys might call.

Lucius kept her from clutching her belly—seconds? minutes? more?—until Snape apparated in.

At the familiar _pop_ of the spell, Hermione arched up as much as she could.

The light from the tall windows came in muted and green, and the figures swam through it like they were all in an old aquarium. Her old familiar hated teacher stood in the middle of the dining hall, all sweeping black.At the sight of her, something flickered across his face—and he sneered.

She jolted, which made her cry out in pain and go still. Draco came back to kneel by her, looking at her, pleading.

Bellatrix cackled.

“Get her out of here,” Snape instructed Narcissa, jerking his head at the madwoman. Narcissa nodded, and took her sister's arm.

“We have to prepare for the Dark Lord, Bella,” Narcissa said, as she jerked her sister past Hermione, up a stone flight of stairs that lay behind her. “He’ll be so happy with us. With you.”

“I know that,” Bella snapped, but already the women’s voices were receding.

Snape swooped to kneel by Hermione's side, adjusting her on Lucius with a sure, clinical touch.

“Thank you, Severus,” Lucius said, quietly.

Snape only exhaled, examining the wound. “Don’t you have any spare wands, Lucius?” he said, dry derision curling in his low voice. “Or in fact any artifacts that can staunch bleeding instead of causing it?”

“It’s never come up,” Lucius drawled. He was comfortable, it seemed, with Snape.

"Make yourself useful and find something," Snape said to Draco, who sneered, but got up and fled the room.

Lucius looked down at her, his lank hair falling further on her. In the strange light, his pale eyes looked like grey pits in his haggard face. “Perhaps—perhaps you should concentrate on acquiring what she knows,” he added. He was trying to sound haughty and dispassionate; there was a crackle of desperation to his voice she was pleased to note even in her pain.

Snape’s black eyes glittered. “That could take a very long time; with every stupid fact she’s indiscriminately shoved into her overeager little head. Then again…”

Snape’s tendency to speak slowly and add dramatic pauses was literally going to kill her, she realized.

“…perhaps her knowledge _is_ all we need,” he finally continued. “Should we even keep her alive?” He spoke to Lucius, but looked at her eyes as he did.

Malfoy didn’t answer. Both men looked down at her. Lucius, cradling her head, looked terrified. Snape couldn’t be read at all.

Hermione closed her eyes.

Snape seemed to be asking if he should bother healing her, given what she would have to face. And they were waiting for her answer. Or maybe that was the shock talking.

“Think carefully, my friend,” Snape murmured. “I won’t allow you to regret sending for me.”

Hermione swallowed. Her mouth tasted like metal. Her muscles still twitched.

A ridiculous question.

Or was it? _L’appel du vide_ , and all—and the _vide_ was so close.

What could wait for her, other than death? Only torture, _then_ death. And then only after she had handed Voldemort all her secrets.

Pathetic really. All that struggle, her whole life. All that anxiety and insecurity. All that work.

All that studying and fighting.

(Books and cleverness.)

All to prove herself just as good as anyone else. To earn a place in the world.

And she ended up prone and dying on the floor of her enemies anyway.

It hadn’t been enough.

 _She_ hadn’t been enough.

Maybe she _should_ just slip away—

“Hermione,” Snape said, almost too soft to hear.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. No. She had a bad habit of acting irrationally when her clever plans went wrong. She knew this. She would not give up now.

She opened her eyes, and nodded.

Snape’s eyes narrowed; his face hardened further.

“Yes,” Lucius breathed—he was answering Severus, for anyone or thing that might be listening. “Do try, Severus.”

Snape pulled out his wand, and, placing his hand on her belly, began a series of low murmuring incantations. The pain dulled and died almost immediately, and she gasped at the sudden relief. She felt a kite cut loose from its string.

“My lord!” a woman cried from upstairs—a world away.

“Oh,” Hermione breathed, and slipped into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione gasped into consciousness where she had fallen, at the feet of Lucius Malfoy. He sat in an armchair. (He must have dragged a chair over to keep watch.) No one else was in the room; the sky through the windows was a dark wash of grey.

It was just him and her.

So just only one person to get through, to escape, she thought, madly.

He leaned back and looked down at her with an uncomfortable intensity, lip curled, his face a pale mask with shadows pooling in the sharp angles. Azkaban had ravaged him, yes, but it had only given him the peculiar beauty of a ruin.

Her stomach twisted when she saw how he looked at her. This had, she realized, never not been the case—his cold regard had always been unsettling—but it was different this time. He had always looked at her like she was beneath him. Now, he was intent on her.She had never seen such hate or heat in those icy eyes, which was only magnified by the dark circles under them.

“The beauty awakes,” he sneered. “Good evening, Miss Granger.”

She twisted her face and tried to stir up—but her hands were bound behind her with infernally intricate loops and knots. _Snape_ , she thought. At least her wound seemed to be mostly healed; she only felt a twinge of pain in her belly.

Lucius reached to grab the front of her jacket and stood, pulling her up with him. He looked her over, his expression unchanging. Her heart beat faster.

Lucius Malfoy had frightened her as a child in the bookstore, with his sophistication and cruelty, although that had not stopped her from standing up to him. He had frightened her later, as a Death Eater, although that had not stopped her from fighting the Death Eaters. He had frightened her most the last time she had encountered him, in the Department of Mysteries—the way he murmured to them, the way he held his hand out, how he in all his undeserved power and beauty looked heartbroken for them although he would just as soon murder them—seductive and charming and certain. A small, traitorous part of her had even whispered that they should consider his offer. That they should give in, and live to fight another day.

“Mr. Malfoy,” she said, and, face hot, tried to look him over just as coolly. The corner of his mouth turned up at that, and she hated him. “You’ve looked better,” she added.

He exhaled a kind of laugh. She had surprised him. “I apologize for not meeting your undoubtedly high standards, Miss Granger.” He traced a line down her cheek and throat, and she couldn’t help shuddering. “I _could_ make some observations, myself.”

She bit her lip; she had let her fear and anger get to her. “Mr. Malfoy,” she started, again. “Listen to me. I know—“ _how to put it_ — “I know it’s gone badly for you. But listen—if you help me, I can help you. And your family. I—“

At the mention of his family he jerked her up further, raising her to her toes. “The little Gryffindor princess indeed. All audaciousness and misinterpretation.” He brought his face in close. He smelled of wine and woodsmoke; none of the expensive cologne she remembered. “ _Do you know_ ,” he hissed, “ _what you’ve done to me_?”

“We—“

“ _You_.”

She had no answer. His cold eyes burned.

In the room above, laughter echoed out—Bella cackling, it sounded like, and and a man— _no_.

Not a man. Not anymore.

Lucius lowered her back to her feet.

“You’re wanted, my dear,” he leaned to say into her ear, and turned her around. He twisted his hand in her hair to better direct her up the pale stone staircase. When she lagged, he jerked her back against him. For as icy as he looked, his skin was warm. “Don’t give me an excuse,” he whispered.

She turned her head to look up at him. “Listen. Please. If—if you would, ever…” she whispered. “If Ron or Harry make it, would you—“

He laughed out loud. “Oh my dear,” he said softly, his usually honeyed drawl rough. “As if any either of us is going to survive this.” He pushed her forward again, to keep marching up. 

At the top of the staircase was a dining room of sorts, all in stone and polished black wood, tapestry and crystal. A fire burned in the fireplace and candles flickered.

Across the long gleaming table, sitting at its head, was Voldemort. He stared at her, with his dead red eyes.

She slumped against Lucius _. No_ , she thought.

It would take more than intelligence or talent to survive this.

Lucius pushed her in, to stand with her at the front of the table. He placed a hand at her waist to hold her still. He seemed to be shaking, ever so slightly.

The Dark Lord indeed looked like he had never seen sunlight; like he had evolved away from the very concept of it. The lines of his face, of the once-handsome man he had been, made the effect even more jarring. Even from afar, he had a dark cold pull that far overcame the Dementors; the air felt heavy and dead.

“She wakes,” Voldemort sneered, in his strangely breathy voice. “The boy’s most treasured companion.”

“Hermione Granger,” she managed to whisper. Lucius tensed; he dug his fingers again into her waist.

Voldemort smiled, a rictus mocking the expression. Her blood ran cold.

“Yes, _Hermione_ ,” he said. He gestured; Lucius stepped her closer. “My _loyal_ followers may have let your friends escape; we will have to make do with you.”

Snape and Bellatrix sat at his right; Narcissa and Draco Malfoy at his left. Only Bellatrix looked comfortable. Hermione didn’t care. They were getting exactly what they all wanted when they decided to follow him, drunk on the dominion of others as all of them were.

“I caught her, my lord,” piped up Bellatrix, her dark eyes wide and earnest with adoration.

Voldemort didn’t look at her. “Where is your wand, Bella? _Where is the boy_.”

Bellatrix cringed, and collapsed into herself.

Hermione felt Lucius begin breathing again. A sick delight curled in her stomach—she and her friends had been the cause of icy lord Malfoy's very evident fall from grace.

Her mind, finally awake, ticked into gear. Lucius was terrified. And so was his wife and son, although they hid it better. This would make them panicky and unpredictable...and maybe prone to listening to her, if she could offer something of value. Safety, maybe, or clemency. If she could stay alive—if she could just get through to Draco; he had to have recognized Harry and lied to his aunt Bella about it—

“Severus,” Voldemort said.

“Yes, my lord,” Snape answered, low and polite.

Voldemort pointed to Hermione. “If you would be so kind.”

Snape stood, and glided up to her. His face was utterly impassive; if anything, he looked tired. With a jerk of his wand, Hermione was held up by magic instead of Malfoy.

Lucius fell back, relief evident on his harrowed face. In the light, she could see better he really did look terrible, at least by his own standards. His haughty handsome face now hollow, his icy grey eyes that were usually imperious now pooled in dark circles. It was gratifying to see.

No—it was _delicious_.

"Do endeavor to pay attention to me, Miss Granger," Snape drawled, and jerked her face towards his. Before she could realize what he meant to do, he locked eyes with her—and was inside her head. She gasped as he pushed through.

Harry had described how Snape's Legilimency had felt on him. He hadn’t adequately expressed how disturbing it was.

In her head, Snape was a presence cold and implacable, sifting and sorting and seeing—everything. Everything in her head. She tried to throw up barriers but they were batted away—and anywhere she tried to block, that’s where he went.

Snape saw Hermione and Harry and Ron's plans. He saw how they hid. He even saw how she felt about them. He even saw—

When he pulled back out, he was sneering softly.

She felt violated. 

_Which I have been,_ she thought, hotly.

When Snape spoke, it was with bored disbelief. “They’ve been hiding, the little heroes, for some time—which we know. They believe—that no witch or wizard can defeat you like a common one. They’ve been searching for magical artifacts that they believe will defeat you—the latest being Godric Gryffindor’s sword.”

“Defeat me,” Voldemort said. He was smiling, but his eyes were narrow. "With a sword."

“Yes. Like how it was able to slay the basilisk.” Snape scoffed. 

It was the truth—but not quite.

She felt her face twitch in recognition of the fact; she twisted it into a sob.

Voldemort smiled.

“You’ll of course make a full report, Severus, when we’ve all gathered.”

“Of course, my Lord.”

“They certainly did come far,” Voldemort said. Bella looked at him in confusion. "For two boys and a little mudblood."

“Thanks to her. No doubt the boys have returned to the wilderness by now, to plan their rescue. Of course, without her, the boys will be soon lost. “

_He wasn’t wrong._

Snape let the spell drop and she collapsed. Lucius hauled her back up.

“So bright and capable, isn’t she?” Voldemort mused. “For a mudblood witch.”

“ _She_ certainly thinks so,” Snape drawled, returning to his seat.

“And such initiative,” Voldemort continued—then, in a sharp voice: “ _Shame your child couldn’t demonstrate the same, Lucius_.”

Lucius gripped her tighter. “My lord—if you’ll be so kind, Draco has been only faithful.” His usual voice, his sneeringly high clipped drawl, hovering at the back of his throat, was rough once more.“Without him, Hogwarts would not have been taken.”

“Yet couldn’t even recognize his own classmate,” Voldemort sneered.

Draco looked green; he was staring at a fixed point at the middle of the table. Narcissa’s fingers gripped tight on his hand under the table; she seemed interested in the same point. Hermione thought, dizzily, that she might never see her own mother again.

Voldemort continued. “Which is either stupidity or weakness. I’m sure you thought this would save you, Malfoys. _Lucius_. But it only throws your fault into steeper shadow.”

“The Malfoys—“ Hermione blurted, before she could stop herself.

Lucius jerked her head back by her hair. “Silence,” he hissed.

Voldemort waved his hand. “Let her speak.” He sounded amused.

She felt Lucius bow.

“The Malfoys—“ she started, again. What had she meant to say? It was gone. Then again, this might be the last chance she got to speak. Ever. “Well. Shows what a superiority complex gets you, doesn’t it? Nothing but failure.”

Silence.

Hermione made herself stare defiantly up. Lucius stared at her, eyes wide, as if she had suddenly grown an extra head. Voldemort looked intrigued; Draco horrified; Bella amused. Narcissa stared at Voldemort. Snape’s expression, as always, she couldn’t read.

Voldemort raised his wand.

Hermione looked at Narcissa’s hand on Draco’s, and closed her eyes.

And then Voldemort laughed.

“She has a point, Lucius. How many times will your family fail me?”

Lucius’s nails were digging into her skin; she writhed away, and he pulled her back into place. “My lord. I have been your loyal servant—“

“Your son and your blind love for him are your undoing. Is it because you had such trouble conceiving him, you hold on to him so tightly?” Voldemort asked.

Lucius’s fingers curled in her hair.

Voldemort smiled, and it was perhaps the ugliest thing Hermione has ever seen.

But even with what she knew of his evil, she could never have expected what he would say next.

“Perhaps you should try again Lucius.” He nodded at Hermione. “With her.”

A pause.

Lucius almost sputtered. “My lord?!”

“Oh come now, Lucius, you’ve done it before. And she’s lovely enough, for a Mudblood.” Voldemort waved his hand at her vaguely. “Perhaps with your breeding, and her talent and initiative, you may get a better heir. At least another hostage too, for the boy to try to rescue. Something for her to remember the Malfoys by.”

Lucius and Hermione stole utterly horrified glances at the other. Bellatrix cackled in glee. Draco was now staring a hole into the table. Narcissa seemed to be frantically trying to communicate something with her husband through her eyes.

“But she’s—“ Lucius started. He caught Narcissa’s gaze, and bit the words back.

Voldemort’s face lost all mirth. “Not your wife? A filthy mudblood? Yes, I _do_ know that, Lucius. But it’s for the cause, isn’t it? And mating with a mudblood is, I think, so fitting for you and your current station. At last, something you can’t ruin. _Or so you should pray_.”

“I’m afraid I—I don’t—“

“Oh, you understand me, Lucius. Get her with child. As soon as possible. That is my wish for you, my fallen friend. That is, in fact, my _order_.”

Lucius made to speak, but Narcissa leaned forward, placing her hand on the table before Voldemort.

“We are so grateful, my lord, for your graciousness,” she said, a little too loud.

Hermione felt Lucius suck in a breath.

“Yes, my lord,” he finally choked out. "So very grateful."

Voldemort smiled. “Anything to say now? Miss Granger?

Hermione shook her head. She thought about calling attention to Draco—which the Malfoys had assiduously been avoiding—but decided against it.

 _She_ at least, could curb her own cruel streak.

(When she remembered to.)

Severus leaned over. His expression had gone contemplative. “If I may, my lord?”

Voldemort waved his hand.

Hermione’s heart leapt.Either Snape had misunderstood what he had seen in her head—unlikely—or he had lied. Maybe he had lied for her. Maybe he was on their side.

And Snape, for all his many, many, _many_ faults, was not stupid.

“Might you instead consider giving her to me?” her old professor asked.

 _Oh_.

Voldemort’s lip—what he had of a lip—curled. “You question my punishment, Severus?”

Snape gave a small smile. “Not in the slightest. But I know her best, and I can better get all the information she’s been hiding if I have undivided time with her.”

“You’ve put up with her the longest, you mean.”

Snape nodded. “Indeed.”

“I’ve never seen you show interest in a woman, Severus. I had rather thought you incapable, since Lily Potter.”

Snape didn’t flinch. “I am very exacting, it is true, my Lord. But my interest is more punitive than prurient. I have longed to show her her place for some years now.”

It was another terrible irony, Hermione reflected that a man so harsh and severe and cruel, had such a dark velvet voice.

Voldemort waved his hand. “Very well. You’ll alternate days—and nights. I expect all she knows out, and a child in, as soon as possible.” He looked up, sneering. “ _Anything to say, Lucius_?”

“…No, my lord.”

“Good,” he said. “Sort out the details quickly. Pray the child is yours, Lucius. Bella, make sure word gets out about what the Mudblood is suffering.” He stood. “I am calling the others. We have much to discuss.”

He swept out. Narcissa and Bella followed. Draco lingered, but thought better of it.

Lucius dropped her to the ground, and stared at her. She curled up. Snape was soon at his side.

Both men stared down at her.

Lucius kneeled and scooped up her head to make her look at him.

“What have you done, you stupid thing,” he whispered. “Was it worth it?”

“I lived,” she smiled, but her smiling trembled. His eyes widened, and he put her down more gently.

Snape placed a hand on Lucius’s shoulder. “I’ll take her first, Lucius.”

Lucius nodded, and stood, and breathed. He seemed grateful. “Of course.”

“I don’t need to convince you of the dark lord’s seriousness,” Snape murmured.

Lucius nodded again—then cocked his head, as something occurred to him. “Severus. You never—“

“Some circumspection, please, Lucius. _Don’t prove the girl right_.”

Lucius took a deep breath, and settled into his usual cold demeanor. “I’ll have her delivered to your usual quarters," he said, as if he was referring to a late dinner.

“My thanks.” Snape stole an inscrutable look at her as Lucius called his elves, then began to walk out.

“Pro—Snape!” she called.

Snape turned around.

“You're a coward,” she said, coolly, remembering what Harry had told her about him.

He was on her in an instant, jerking her face up.

“My apologies, Miss Granger—would you prefer Draco’s father first?”

She stared at him.

He released her. “Stupid girl.” And then he swept out, closely followed by Lucius, who did not look back at all.

He was right, of course. They both were right.

She hadn’t been clever enough, or strong enough, or brave enough.

(“ _She’s lovely enough_.”)

Or _anything_ enough.

To escape. To defeat. To succeed.

And she was alone, now.

Like she had always feared.

She didn’t even feel the elf at her shoulder before she was whisked away.


	3. The Lesson

The key, Hermione was finding, was to keep moving. Both body and mind.

This meant pulling at and twisting at the bonds that cut tight into her wrist and ankles, and kicking as she could against the air that chilled her legs. This meant squirming on the dark, soft, slippery bedding that was finer—sickeningly so—than she had ever known.

This meant trying to _think_.

Otherwise the sheer horror and despair of her predicament — of her friends’ predicament, too, of all their wretched _predicaments —_ would catch up to her. Would rise up and catch in her throat and sting her eyes.

That she was bound to an arching metal bedframe in a curiously austere room in Malfoy Manor, in a sick parody of a schoolgirl uniform courtesy of some transfiguration from Malfoy’s house elf, with the only way to judge time how the fire in the fireplace crackled and consumed itself, waiting for her old _professor for Merlin’s sake_ to come in and—

That if she didn’t escape, she would almost certainly die. That others would die, too. All she loved.

The room didn’t seem like the rest of Malfoy Manor; it was so spare as to seem a storage room of sorts, for a bed and a desk and not much else.

His room, Snape had said, and a curiously childish betrayal curled in her heart.

She wouldn’t have guessed he had such predilections.

But then again, if he could hide his true loyalty to Voldemort, he could certainly hide any improper thoughts from a girl who would never dream of looking for them—if only because she was anxious not to give any indication of her own occasional (guilty, shocking, unwelcome) flight of fancy involving him.

_There isn’t time for this._

Hermione closed her eyes, and clenched her nails into her palms to help with blood flow, and took a breath. She tried to ground herself, to fall back into herself. The room smelled of woodsmoke, and night air. A window out of sight must be cracked open.

She tried to _feel,_ feel out any of the magic that bound her and see if she could slip through with her own.

(A new skill, but she had been practicing. Her purse had had a library’s worth of theory about personal magic—the magic of a witch or wizard that was part of their being, that the wands only channeled—that the boys had sneered good-naturedly at. )

(“What are you getting ready for?” Harry had laughed. “Graduate school? A research post? You still think it’s worth spending time investing in your future, do you?”)

(“Of course I do, and so should you,” she had retorted, hotly.)

(A conversation from both last week, and another life.)

She _reached_ , little tendrils of focused power, into the space around her, up and out, searching, tentative—

But the force that met her was like none she had ever encountered—huge and heavy and oppressive.

And _old_.

The wards on the house maybe—she cried out as it crushed her back into herself.

As if on cue, pain lit up in bright trails along her body—this time along her ribcage—searing electric up some branching of nerves, and Hermione’s mind went blank.

 _Aftereffects of Crucio_. She hadn’t known the extent of them.

Not that it would have mattered.

All it meant, was she couldn’t _think_.

The despair threatened to rise again.

Hermione Granger’s mind had never really failed her.

She’d churn her data around in her head, and always something would click, would slide into focus—the path forward. The missing piece. The solution.

But she had never been under such stress before. of months of terror and plotting, of multiple rounds of Crucio—of _getting stabbed_.

Of being tied to a bed, clenching her knees together best she could.

There was something stubborn caught in the cogs of her mind. About Snape.

Something wasn’t adding up about his actions, and what that said about his true motivations or loyalty.

Usually this meant certain information in her data set needed to be discarded.

But which, she could not say. Even though it could mean life or death.

 _Perhaps_ —

Pain lanced through her calf, turning her mind white again.

 _It was impossible to work like this_ , she thought, exasperated, and then laughed aloud.

Because it didn’t matter.

There was no consolation prize for not—

The door clicked open softly, and Snape swept in. He bled into the dark behind him except for his pale face, and her mind was momentarily bleached with panic as well as pain.

When he saw her he stopped, his black eyes flaring—and then he sneered.

“I suppose _this_ is what—“ he started, at the same time she cried out, “I know wandless magic!”

He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head in disbelief. “What a very stupid thing to tell me, especially if it were true.”

She blurted a laugh, at the sheer nonsense of it all. Something about his withering scorn actually made her feel more comfortable. On familiar footing.

He stared, and her smile disappeared.

And then he strode forward.

He was called a bat, but she always considered him more of a snake. He had a strange way of moving—languorously, controlled...and then all at once, when he struck. There was always the sense of something violent and rabid coiled in him, kept barely constrained by all his innumerable buttons.

She couldn’t stop herself from squirming. If he were to—well, strike—there was nothing she could do.

He stopped at the side of the bed. His face was blank; his eyes were dark as he coldly examined her, and something coiled traitorously in her core under his black gaze.

“As I was saying,” he said, low, his lip curling, “Lucius’s assumptions are, as ever, _disappointing_.”

“I admit to being disappointed too— _Professor_ ,” she spat.

He gave a small infuriating smile.

And, after far too long, he raised his wand and pointed it at her.

“Never fear, Miss Granger,” he said, as her bonds released. “I won’t touch you.”

Drunk with relief, she rubbed her wrists.

“Thank you.”

“Surely I’ve penetrated you enough for one evening.”

 _There it was,_ she thought, grimacing.

With a smooth movement but a terrible scraping sound of metal over stone, he pulled the chair from the nearby desk over and sat in it facing her, frowning.

Hermione pulled the sheets and bedding over herself and her ridiculous mockery of clothing. She felt warm for the first time in recent memory.

Till her blood ran cold. “Professor!” she said. “Won’t he be…displeased?”

If they were to be perceived as to have disobeyed…well, between torment by Bellatrix and Voldemort, and…sleeping with Snape, she’d choose the latter.

“I believe my instructions were to do what I will. As _disappointing_ as I know it is.” He sounded bored, of all things, as he indulged his strange wont of keeping perfectly, unsettlingly still as he spoke. “Or is it really so hard to stomach, that I may be immune to your garrulous—unkempt—charm?”

His words would have stung and infuriated her, even a year ago. Now, though...

 _Was this a ruse, to gain her trust_? The question stuck in her throat.

“But…Voldemort said—“

He flew forward and was on the bed, on her, his hand on her mouth, pressing her against the headboard, his other hand digging painfully into her leg even over the bedding.

“Stupid girl,” he hissed. “ _Do you want an audience_?!”

Hermione paused. He didn’t move, so she spoke through his hand. “He…he said the one who didn’t, would suffer.”

Snape looked honestly baffled—an expression she had rarely seen. “Do you want me to rape you?”

“No,” she said, still muffled. He wasn’t _understanding_.

“Then _don’t…complain_.”

She held his black gaze for a moment while they both breathed, as the fire crackled. And his mask slipped, for the barest fraction of a second. She was shocked to find sorrow there, and fatigue. And _pleading_.

He must have seen his uncharacteristic slip in her eyes, for he jerked back his hand and leaned back up, so he was seated next to where she lie on the bed. His lips were pressed together.

The weight of him pulled her down; she shifted. “You think…” she started, softly.

“Oh _do_ speak up, Miss Granger,” he said to the window. “I know you have a compulsive need to be acknowledged.”

“You think this will be over soon,” Hermione said. "The war, I mean."

He snapped his gaze to hers, casting the sharp planes of his face in shadow and red light. “I think your two idiot friends will be lost without you, and they will die as they try to rescue you.”

_So, yes._

She sucked in a breath at another wave of pain; her leg spasmed, drawing his attention. “They shouldn’t try,” she said softly. Which was true, which of course made it hurt more to speak aloud.

“When has that ever stopped any of you,” he said, cold and velvet, and turned away again.

He was retreating. 

She reached out tentatively to touch his back, and he flinched away.

“What you saw—“ she started.

He grabbed her wrist hard, digging his long fingers in, and pushed it down into the mattress as she cried out in surprise.

“What is your goal here, Miss Granger?” He grabbed her other wrist with his free hand as she attempted to pull herself free. “Are you trying to goad me, perhaps, into shutting you up?”

“Professor, I—!“

“ _If you want a lesson, I will give you one_.” He pinned both her wrists to her side and leaned in. “You need to learn—you have always needed to learn— _how and when to hold your_ _tongue.”_

Hermione glared at him. There was nothing of what she had seen before in his black eyes. In fact, the charged intensity and fear of the entire night had twisted something in her, and she found herself, hatefully, noting the surprisingly delicate lines of his lips.

 _If only I could think._ Up close, he smelled of wool, and smoke, and the acrid electric buzz of chemicals that hung around him always.

“Or someone will hold it for you,” he continued, more quietly, and released her to sit back. “Malfoy, perhaps.”

_Bastard._

She rubbed her hands through her unruly hair. He seemed to be her ally; she would tentatively operate under that assumption.It made sense he had to stay in here a certain amount of time; it made sense (of course it made sense) they couldn’t speak or act remotely freely. She’d have to try a different tactic.

_What had worked for Harry?_

_Well, nothing_.

“I’m just trying to understand.”

_And help, if I should. And get your help, if I can._

“You will fail.”

“You ask for a former student—one whom you do famously dislike, yes, but also one who you hate the very sight of. Which calls certain things into question—whether about you, or my understanding of certain matters of sadism, I’m unsure.So I’m just…curious, I suppose.“

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You think your appearance isn’t to my liking?” he murmured, insinuating.

Her brows knit; he had thrown her off balance, as he had no doubt meant to. And he saw it. He was a much better player than she was; intelligence and curiosity could only get so far against experience.

She narrowed her eyes back at him.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not sensitive about your opinion, if that helps you craft any more insults.”

He leaned forward. “You can’t lie. Not to me.”

“I’m not lying!” she snapped.

“I think you’d quite enjoy if you had my approval in any matter. You _thrive_ on such a thing.” The venom had gotten back into his low slow voice, and one side of his mouth was curling into an unpleasant smile.

Her stomach clenched. “ _What did you see_. In my head.”

He reached out to pluck at a lock of her hair, letting it fall. “You are utterly unprepared for anything like this, aren’t you.” There was only contempt in his voice.

“Five points from Gryffindor,” she blurted, brattily, and immediately regretted it.

To her surprise, he smiled.

She rubbed her face to cover her frustration and discomfort. “I…tried to keep you out, you know. When you were in me—in my head.”

“Oh? I didn’t notice.”

“There are ways to do that,” she continued, undeterred. “Keep people out. Hide things. I’ve read quite a bit about it.” She did not react to his expression at that statement. “And you…you’ve taught students to do it.”

“But what of a student like you?” he said. “One whose most enduringly annoying trait is the exact opposite of what makes a skilled Occlumens: a tendency to push. To _please_.”

He sneered. “You seem to be very clumsily trying to ask me for help; is that right?”

She didn’t answer.

“I will not help you,” he said. “I will give you advice. That tendency—that tendency to _achieve_ , to prove yourself, will be your undoing.” He paused, and shrugged. “That said, I’m sure it will serve you well with Lucius.”

Hermione felt a catch in her throat.

 _I’m afraid of him_ , she thought of saying.

“I’ve never—that is…I lack experience,” she confessed, not looking at his face. “Ah—any, experience.”

He flinched. “…Really? Even with all the extra time your little turner gave you? A couple years, wasn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Couldn’t fit it in, as it were?”

“ _I’ve been busy_.”

“So tomorrow, with Malfoy—“

“Yes.”

“Oh,” he said, and there was a weight to his voice she had never heard before. He reached out to touch her face, with tenderness. His hand was warm. “That is a pity. I…that is a pity, Hermione.”

She felt tears well in her eyes, and leaned into his hand before she could think better of it.

“Do you not see,” he murmured silkily, as he stroked her face, as she shivered, “how dangerous this is?” He sat back, cold and still. “We quite loathe one another, and yet. What if I were to comfort you, now? To provide strength and calm and comfort?”

Her eyes widened. “I’d come undone.”

She almost had.

“I’m surprised, for all your lauded intelligence, none of this has occurred to you,” he said.

She opened her mouth to retort, but instead she cried out as pain crackled across her ribcage like burning lace, and she doubled over. He stayed still.

“I’m sure you’re aware,” she choked, “but it’s difficult to think through the aftereffects of Crucio.”

“And as I’m sure you’re aware from your _extensive reading_ ,” he said, “that not only does that not matter, but the aftereffects will take some time to subside.”

He wouldn’t help her, she realized. Not really.

He was playing his own game.

She’d have to play, too.

_There were other ways than wands._

She held the thought away from herself in her mind, horrified—but then again, there was nothing to lose by trying. And potentially much to gain.

And she didn’t think he would hurt her.

Not _really_.

Not in a way that mattered.

And maybe then she would be able to _think_.

She tilted her chin up. “Will you help me?”

He laughed. “Miss Granger, even if I were so disposed, a little relief for you left as a trace on my wand would hardly be worth it to me.”

“There are other ways.”

Snape looked sharply into her eyes. His face was twisted with anger.

“I’ve read about them,” she said indignantly, before realizing he wasn’t angry about her being wrong.

( _He never was, was he?_ )

For a moment, he didn’t move at all. His thin mouth pursed. Hermione saw, for perhaps not the first time, the odd haughty tormented intensity about him that so seemed to mesmerize Slytherin girls once they hit about third year. Her blood was pounding.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking,” he finally said.

“I do. _I have to be able to think_ , Pro—Snape.” she said.

“You absolutely do not understand. Knowledge, as I’ve tried so many times to impart through your hard little skull, is a very different thing than _understanding_.”

His voice grew softer, almost wistful. “It’s the only place your work ever lacked. The intuitive understanding of a larger principle. Chiefly due to your age, I imagine. I was the same.” His lips twisted at that last part.

“I imagine I’ve learned a lot in the past few months,” she said. “Perhaps also like you did, at my age.”

He looked at her for a long time. She forced herself to hold his intense gaze.

“Very well, Miss Granger,” he finally said.He waved his wand so the air grew warmer, as he raised an eyebrow. “You are aware how this is done?”

“I am aware how this is done,” she said.

“Then I shall not have to explain, shall I?” he said, and reached out to begin unbuttoning her low-cut blouse. He was unnaturally quick, and within seconds he had freed her breasts from their too-tight encasing.

“Ah!” she cried out, grasping at his wrists. 

He stopped. “Something amiss? Did your extensive reading not mention how this was done—skin to skin?” He jerked his head at her. “Remove the rest of your clothing. And lie down.”

Her face hot— _how much had he turned up that fire?_ —she pulled up the blanket. With some difficulty, she shrugged off her blouse, and pulled off her skirt and socks.

He watched her as he stood to remove his cloak, his eyes glittering.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of changing her mind. If he could go through with it, so could she.

(She decided, though, to leave her underwear on.)

When finished and the clothes pushed aside, she lay down, the blanket up to her shoulders.

“Ok,” she said.

Snape climbed up to kneel on the bed beside her.

He was surveying her, but seemed lost, calculating. He pulled up her wrist gently, and stroked a hand up and down her wounded arm, murmuring something. She felt little pulses of magic sing through her, pooling in some places and coursing through others. He was lost in what he was doing, in his intense and iron attention that was all focused on her.

 _That had always been one of Snape’s geniuses_ , she thought. _His observation and precision._ _Always entranced with understanding the properties and reactions of things._

Perhaps because he so hated his own properties and reactions.

Her arm had stopped throbbing—she hadn’t realized how much it had hurt, and she was almost dizzy with relief. She felt a tear run down her cheek, which she hurriedly wiped away.

Snape ran a hand through her hair. 

And he began.

He started with her jaw, massaging. His fingers were warm, and skilled, and callused, and as she relaxed she felt little currents of his magic entering through her skin, calming her nerves. It was as relentless as he was—but here it felt soothing, calming. Like listening to his dark voice. Like sinking into a dark pool.

It felt good.

It almost felt _too_ good.

Hermione closed her eyes, and breathed out a little moan without meaning to.

Snape froze.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

He didn’t say anything, but finally continued, focusing on her joints and tendons. At every place, her nerves first seemed to calm—but then send out little rogue messages, coursing outward, out and down, to her core.

She tried to ignore these as he massaged her neck. Her arms. Her shoulders.

He was reaching where the quilt covered her, right below her arms, and her stomach curled in an anticipation she didn’t feel like interrogating.

He pulled down the sheet, exposing her breasts and belly to him. She reached up to cover herself out of instinct, but he gently pulled her arms away. She felt him pull in a breath; she felt a familiar heat and tightening between her own legs.

“Breathe, Miss Granger,” he murmured, dark, as he continued his touch, down, circling her breasts but never touching them, soothing the nerves and tendons of her chest.

She took a breath, and the swell of her chest met his hands around her ribcage. Her nipples ached, radiating an awful need.

He moved his left hand to her right side as well, and brushed her right nipple, and it was like he plucked a string, the way she almost vibrated at his touch, and she cried out.

“My apologies. Should I continue?” He looked down at her.

“Yes,” she said.

_Bastard._

She had watched him work for almost a decade. He had the most unearthly precision and grace in his hands she had ever seen in a human.

_He was doing this on purpose._

He knew exactly what the side effects were of this treatment.

The book she had read had been cagey on the subject; when they said this kind of thing worked best between partners, she assumed it was because of some sympathy of magic.

And maybe it was.

But in practice, her pain wasn’t so much dissolved as _transformed_ — into a pleasure she didn’t anticipate.

 _This was wrong_ — _oh, that felt good, if only he would touch_ —

She should tell him to stop.

She wouldn’t.

But she could remember her own plan.

“What should I know about Mr. Malfoy,” she said, her voice breathier than she would have liked. Perhaps her tendency to talk to dispel her own discomfort was obvious, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

He chuckled.

(She had never heard him chuckle. But then again, she had never—well.)

“I imagine,” he said, drily, his fingers pulling deliciously on the flesh underneath her left breast, “that given the circumstances, and that the best case scenario is that he fathers your child, you might refer him as Lucius.”

She glared up at him in annoyance. He was focused on her, and did not glance up. “What should I know about Lucius,” she corrected.

His hands curled around her waist to get to her lower back, and she arched happily to allow him access. That earned her a dark look, and his hands pulling back.

“Sorry,” she said. “Should I not move?”

“You’re doing fine,” he finally said roughly, continuing on her hips, before remembering himself.“Well enough, at least.”

“I’m afraid of him,” she finally blurted.

“You should be.”

Her body tensed, and Snape hissed in irritation, before sighing.

“What I mean is—he was good with women, Lucius. Before he was the shattered husk of a man you see now. You should of course have a strategy that plays to your strengths.”

Hermione tried not to let him see her triumph—it was working, distracting him. He was talking. He was giving her things she could use.

(She would rue this confidence, later.)

Instead, she focused on how delicious the removal of pain felt, and how it transformed like alchemy into pleasure in her body. His touch on her hips curled jolts down her, pooling in her center.

Indeed, it was getting to be too much. Hermione felt the vertigo of losing control.

She closed her eyes again. “What makes you think I don’t have a strategy?” she asked, trying to sound indignant.

“The way you hesitated,” he murmured, dark and low in her ear, and to her chagrin it made her cry out and jump.

He was pulling back, smirking.

_God, he was truly awful._

“Maybe that was my strategy,” she countered.

He scoffed.

“To seem utterly inexperienced, and…ah…pliable.” Her face flushed. For some reason, for the first time that night she felt embarrassed.

“You’re not that good,” he drawled. “Not yet.”

Something in his voice made her shift to see him better, to his displeasure.

“How do you see me?” she asked, and his eyes flared. “I mean—what are my strengths. It might help me.”

He looked at her for a long moment.

And then he moved, leaning over her.

“You’re not that good,” he repeated, an iron, acrid edge to his voice. “Or you might have realized the danger you put yourself in this evening.”

A stab of fear, which turned into anticipation.

_Must be the damn magic._

He moved down the bed, lower, and pulled down the bedding all the way.

The chill air hit her lower body, and Hermione was grateful she had kept her panties on. She tried to steady her breathing—he did not look at her, and his face was strangely dark. Hermione felt rather that she was hovering at a precipice, about to pitch down.

He bent her leg back and over his lap. At the top of her thighs, he dissolved a particularly difficult knot in a little flush of ecstasy.

“Ohhh,” she cried out, and there was no way of masking the feeling behind the cry. She sat up. “You’re doing something,” she accused.

“What you should be feeling is relaxation,” he said, harshly, and looked down his nose at her. “Are you feeling something else?”

“No.” She lay back down with a sneer.

He hissed in disapproval. “When and if you lie,” he said, “you have to, in some way, mean it. So you have enough to serve up as truth.”

His clever hands were at her thigh now, and she forced herself to relax. His touch was electric. She felt molten, like there was something pooling between her legs—all the energy headed there. It ached.

She bit back a gasp. “Serve up,” she repeated, instead.

“To anyone who doesn’t need to know the truth.” He moved to her calf and foot—safer territory. “Even under the most extreme of duress.”

Hermione bit her lip. Not so safe after all—it kept building up, that feeling. “How can you keep it all straight,” she murmured.

He stroked a few fingers up the inside of her thigh, up and down, and her leg twitched.

“Who’s to say I can,” he murmured back, with that curl of cruelty she knew so well.

(Did he enjoy touching her? Or was it just her discomfort or loss of control he enjoyed? Was he testing himself, somehow?)

He shifted to her other leg. “Relax, Miss Granger,” he remonstrated. “And think…carefully. About what you want to ask me.”

She closed her mouth, and tried to calculate what would get her a useful answer. 

(It was not easier to think, as she had hoped.)

(She would not give him the satisfaction.)

‘“How can I use this as an opportunity? This…situation?”

He exhaled a laugh. “Before you can even contemplate that, Miss Granger, you must learn the one thing you’ve never been able to stuff into your head—although your brash little idiots of friends have long since mastered it.”

“What’s that?”

He didn’t answer; he stroked the tops of her thighs, which did nothing to ease the taut hum of arousal.

She grimaced.

“You have to mean it,” she repeated again, propping herself up on her elbows. “Does that mean I should try to enjoy what I can? And feign what I can’t? I—oh!”

He was on her, like some sort of vampire, cupping and sucking her breast. It was like fire had shot through her; she could feel herself instantly, confusingly, soaked.

But he pulled back as quickly as he had started. _How dare he_ , she thought, with indignant rage—but whether that was to stop or start, she didn’t know.

She started to clamp her legs together to at least try to hide any evidence of arousal, but he stopped her.

“Better yet,” he said, and his voice was rough. “Pretend you share their own weaknesses. Do you understand me?”

Now both his hands went up her thighs, fingers pulling lightly.

 _Cataloging_ , she thought stupidly. _The properties and reactions of things._

Of _her_.

She was aching, burning, to be touched.

_Maybe then she could think._

_What did he want from her. What was he looking for._

_What did it matter._

“Please,” she said, not able to look at him.

“Please what? Tell you?”

_Good lord._

“Please…sir?”

“No...”

He stopped.

“Please…touch me. Sir.”

Something flickered across his face, too quick to recognize.

“You needy thing.”

His jaw set, he reached up to stroke her over her underwear, making her keen. Soft, slow strokes, his face never betraying anything.

It was torture.

_This goddamned “remedy”, he knew it would be torture and he did it anyway to prove a point._

His other hand gripped her hip tight to hold her still, keep her from bucking into him. It might have hurt, were she not so distracted.

“Please,” she said again, and this time he didn’t make her specify. He closed his hand around the waistband of her underwear, and she lifted her hips.

He pulled it off slowly, precisely.

And she drunk in the reverence of his complete attention.

She recalled, wildly, his old school book. That cramped spiked handwriting in the margins.

All that torment and sadness.

All that anger and cruelty and passion.

All channeled and directed now.

All at her.

He continued up, and stroked a finger up her seam. She felt herself part for him, her cunt and between her thighs almost bursting, singing with want—and then his touch was _there_ —

She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from moaning, even as she parted her legs.

And he kept rubbing, touching, and the sensation kept building and building—

She hissed in frustration.

He leaned over to murmur in her ear.

“Let go, Miss Granger,” he said, low and insinuating, a tone she had never heard from him and which made her shiver.

“I can’t.”

“Shall I stop?”

“No!”

And then a rush of velvet words, only inflaming her further. “You have to be able to let yourself dissolve and still protect yourself. You study so hard, you try so hard. And for what? You shameless, lush little thing. _You have to let go_.”

What a bastard, she thought, as she bucked her hips to direct his touch.

“How can you live like that,” she finally spat, "always lying and feigning."

He had settled into a steady, implacable rhythm of little circular strokes. “Haven’t you had enough?” he said, and there was sadness in his voice.

She didn't care. “Not an answer. I suppose the answer is that you’re still alive,” she said. “For now.”

“For now,” he agreed.

There was such a weight to his words, that she turned to him. But there was nothing in his face to read but fatigue.

He caught her surprised gaze, and sneered.

Once again he had revealed too much.

And then he pushed his finger into her, and renewed his sure, relentless attention to her clit.

“AHHH,” she cried. Her body sang at the sensation of being _filled_ —and then she couldn’t speak, only curse, and plead.

“Like that, yes, oh, just like that!” she whispered.

“I know.” He bent over her, and his voice was urgent and rough. “I know you better than you think, Miss Granger. You think you can always win, if you push hard enough. If you think hard enough. If you are enough, alone.”

“I have to think that,” she gasped, and he pushed another finger in and she cried out, it was so shocking, and felt so good.

She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t think. She could only _feel_.

“There is no winning here, do you understand?” His black eyes seemed to burn. “Victory, perhaps, but at a cost. Surely you must know that. Surely the fact my fingers are inside you can teach you that. You greedy, needy little thing. You pushed so hard, were so curious and eager to beat this somehow, that look at where we are.”

She glared at him. “There’s alway—ah—something—“

“There is nothing you can do. You will stay trapped here, and he will fuck you, and maybe if you are lucky you will enjoy it. Maybe if you are lucky you will live.”

Everything with him, she reflected, _everything_ —so helpful, so vital.

And so _cruel_.

“You knew this would happen,” she moaned.

“I told you, you didn't understand what you were asking. You needed to learn this lesson quickly.”

She turned away from him.

“Am I wrong?” he asked. “ _Tell me to stop_.”

“No.”

(She could call bluffs too.)

“This is an artificial situation, inflamed by fear and chemical reaction. _Tell me to stop_.”

(He wanted her to tell him to stop, to end this.)

“ _No_.”

She was so _goddamn close,_ her whole body humming—but couldn’t quite make it over the edge—

He was doing it on purpose. He’d change rhythm or pull back, just as she approached release.

 _Let go_ , he had said.

And she lay back, and tried to relax.

 _Sinking into a dark pool,_ she thought, just like before when she had tried to untangle the bonds with her own magic, and tried to reach and channel all the energy built up inside her—

This was advanced stuff—

But she was always a quick learner.

She wanted more of him. She reached out to pull him closer, her hand on his angular shoulder.

It surprised him.

“Hermione—“ He put a hand between her breasts to steady himself—and something crackled between them.

Her magic and his. Her own bright and strong and questing and flickering and anxious magic, and his own deep current—

And it felt _good_.

She hadn’t expected that. But at the shock in his eyes, she felt a surge of triumph, of power—and it was enough to send her over.Her mind went white, and she arched back and cried out, in pleasure as much as relief, as she pulsed around his fingers.

Snape pulled back, horrified, as soon as she stilled.

“Thank you,” she breathed. It was gratifying to see him as overcome, in his own way, as she was.

It was only fair.

“ _I think that is quite enough_ ,” he said, scowling.

He took his wand and magicked the shine off the fingers that had been inside her, with a slightly disgusted look.

She ignored him. True, what had happened had been unbelievably intimate, she knew enough to know that. But then again, he had just been inside her, so she felt it was a moot point.

“Does—does that sometimes happen?” She was insanely curious, about the interaction of magic. “Or all the time? Can you make it happen? What can one make happen, with the interactions?”

He stood. “Your mind seems more clear.”

He wasn’t going to tell her. “Yes,” she said, and pulled the blanket over herself. It was a dark grey, a storm cloud of bedding.

“You have to mean it,” he sneered, and something flashed in her head.

“Denial,” she said. “Is that what I’m missing? That my friends know?”

Snape laughed darkly. “Does Potter ever deny himself?” he asked, as he strode towards the door.

(“You still think it’s worth spending time investing in your future, do you?” Harry had asked.)

(“Of course I do, and so should you,” she had retorted, hotly.)

And she realized.

 _Harry was always willing to fail. To die, even._ It irritated her so much.

And it was vital to his success.

“He’s willing to…to lose,” Hermione said.

Snape turned.

“Yes,” he said, almost too low to hear. “You will need to learn to accept loss.”

And then with a flick of his wand, the room went dark, and the last sound she heard from him was the gentle close and locking of the door.

Without the fire, the room was dark and cold. Hermione wrapped the blanket around her (she couldn’t bring herselff to put those clothes back on and checked the cracked window.

It wouldn’t budge, of course.

She collapsed by the wall, taking deep breaths of night air.

The adrenaline tide was fading, now, and taking with it anything not despair.

Snape had given her a great deal, of course. And she had given as much to him. He could serve up to Voldemort her writhing under his hands, pleading.

And yet still, she was here, alone. And out there were her friends.

She was very likely to die—and not even her parents would mourn her. Thanks to her, they had no idea who she was, or had ever existed.

All this, according to him, she would have to accept, if she hoped to escape. To succeed.

To win.

To be enough to not fail everyone, like she had always feared, in the most secret parts of her brilliant mind and tender heart.

And Hermione wept, quietly, for the last time for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> snape what a goddamn mess you are haha
> 
> this was supposed to be a short fic, and now it's all plotted out and will be over 30 chapters. i hope you enjoy it; it's unexpectedly preoccupied me.
> 
> OH AND. this is un-beta'ed. please let me know if you are willing to beta; i can arrange an exchange or some other way to repay you. i don't anticipate more than like 1 chapter every few weeks.


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